Tattoos, and Pies, and Bunks, Oh My!

The new warden has gotten off to a lousy start. In only three weeks time, he’s managed to throw the compound in turmoil. Inmates and officers alike are “out of their square” (prison slang for “stressed”). Who would have thought a short, skinny, older white guy could cause such unease in so little time? He is, I concluded, like the Wizard in Dorothy’s travel to Oz. He is our Wizard of DOC.



“What has he done?” Two significant changes that are reverberating around the compound are being implemented on his watch. First, he has relocked the rec yards. For the past year inmates have enjoyed relatively easy movement from building ball courts to the large yards. On the eastside, guys moved freely between the ball courts on buildings 4, 5 and 6. You could come out on rec call, stretch on the ball court, head to the track or weight pile, get your workout in and then head back to your building. Or, if you lived in building 4 you could go to building 6 for a pick-up game of hoops.


The Wizard ended all that. Only building 4 guys can be on building 4’s court. Want to run? Head to the track and be locked out of the ball court until the next rec call when an officer has to come out and unlock the gate.


Why did he do this (and make movement more restricted than even at a higher level facility)? He’s short-staffed and the staff he has makes Saddam Hussein’s Revolutionary Guard look like Green Berets. The prison lacks sufficient staff to adequately patrol the rec yards. The yards (east and west side) are observed by one officer each sitting in a tower.


As I’ve written before, they don’t have sufficient staff to run the facility. Many days rec is called late because there aren’t enough officers to spare any for the towers. And the officers that do work here? They could film a season of “The Biggest Loser” with the present staff.


The vast (no pun intended) majority of officers on duty here are morbidly obese. We have one Sergeant (“Cheeseburger”) who is so large he can’t use the officers’ commodes. The staff is overweight, sloppy and dominated by African-American females who talk trash and have trash talked to them.


DOC sells the notion to the public that their prisons are highly secure. It is because the inmates themselves lack the motivation to react that keeps the lid on this place. This staff of officers are out of shape, unprofessional, poorly-trained, predominately female; they would lose control of this facility in a few moments if the inmates ever got angry enough.


Rec is the one bit of time guys feel some, albeit small, freedom of movement. The Wizard, in the words of one guy, “f’d” that up.


The Wizard also decided there’s way too much food leaving the chow hall and too many tattoos being done. Inmates are known to sneak fruit and vegetables out of chow. Technically, all food must be consumed in the chow hall. For a long time officers looked the other way when an inmate would grab an apple or an onion and put them in their pocket. The Wizard had other ideas. Officers are now patting down almost everyone leaving chow. Caught with food and you are written a series 100 charge. Series 100? Taking an apple is treated the same as murder or sexual assault (in the past, if a charge was issued, it was a series 200 charge).


Dozens of charges have been written, yet every night the smell of onions, peppers and apples goes through the day room.


Then there are the new middle row bunks. As I’ve written before, the buildings are overcrowded. Some bunks are actually in the fire escape route. And, there are insufficient numbers of officers to patrol the buildings. The Wizard’s solution – replace the middle rows of bunks with bunks from the recently closed James River Correction Center (the Wizard’s former prison).


The James River bunks are lower (the guy on the bottom bunk can’t sit up in bed and can barely roll over) and have no bookshelves. They are closer together meaning guys lose even more floor space (our facility already fails to comply with both federal law and American Corrections Association guidelines on minimum square feet for inmates). The bunks also have the lockers in the cut meaning inmates no longer have access through any bunk cut but must now proceed up and down the aisles.


Why’d he do this? He claims to cut down on the tattoo business prevalent in the buildings. Now, he claims the booth officer will be able to see the entire floor. No need to actually put an officer on the floor.


What the Wizard doesn’t want you to know is that under his watch at JRCC; drugs, tobacco, and cell phones were everywhere. That compound was off the chain. Heh Wiz, it’s not the bunks, it’s the staff!


What’s the result of the bunk switch? The tattoo artists are working like crazy and making a ton of money. Four guys in our building had full back tats done this week. Money ($300 to $500 for backs and arms) is pouring out of here and to the “artists” families. And, on a compound already riddled with Hepatitis C, the likelihood of new infected inmates grows each day.


So, in only three short weeks the Wiz has made his presence known. Which leads me to “Johnny Appleseed” a/k/a “Lil D”. Lil D is a great baker. Using crushed pineapple cream cookies and either apples or sweet potatoes from the kitchen he makes delicious home-made pies four nights a week. With about $10.00 of ingredients, he sells pies for $1.50. Most nights he makes $30.00.


The pies are amazing! The entire dayroom smells of apples and cinnamon. How does he get the apples or sweet potatoes? Right from the kitchen under the eyes of the staff (a number of whom have been known to eat one of his pies). Guys love Lil D’s pies because for the few moments you’re enjoying it, you’re not in this environment. You’re in a kitchen surrounded by family eating dessert.


In the “Wizard of Oz”, when Dorothy met the Wizard, she soon realizes he was just a little man. His entire rep was built with smoke and mirrors. It’s kind of the same thing with the people in charge at DOC.